Tom Dodge | Dispatch

Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, kicked off a multistate bus tour of community colleges at Columbus State today. The “Community College to Career” bus tour is intended to “highlight innovative industry partnerships,” according to the White House. After her talk, Biden, left, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, center, stopped to talk to babies in child care before departing on a bus.

Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, kicked off a multistate bus tour of community colleges at Columbus State today. The “Community College to Career” bus tour is intended to “highlight innovative industry partnerships,” according to the White House. After her talk, Biden, left, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, center, stopped to talk to babies in child care before departing on a bus.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum will add northwest Ohio to his state campaigning. GOP officials say Santorum will speak March 3 at the Lincoln-Reagan Day dinner for the 5th House district. They say all Republican presidential candidates have been invited to the dinner at Bowling Green State University’s student union.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The president just couldn't say no: Mick Jagger held out a mic almost by way of command, and soon Barack Obama was belting out the blues with the best of them.

Undaunted by ridicule from the leader of his own party, an Indiana lawmaker is standing by his allegations that the Girl Scouts is a radical organization that promotes abortions and homosexuality.

President Barack Obama is proposing to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and wants an even lower effective rate for manufacturers, a senior administration official says, as the White House lays down an election-year marker in the debate over tax policy. In turn, corporations would have to give up dozens of loopholes and subsidies that they now enjoy.

A proposed Ohio renewable-energy ballot issue has some strange quirks: $13 billion in investments in wind, solar, geothermal and other energy projects over 10 years would be solely controlled by a secretive Ohio commission incorporated in the state of Delaware; the General Assembly would be strictly prohibited from influencing project selection and investments, or any operation of the Ohio Energy Commission Initiative; the spokeswoman for the energy issue, Evonne Richardson of Columbus, is a model, actress and burlesque dancer who also goes by Zulie Perfect, a fictitious name officially registered with Secretary of State Jon Husted.

Franklin County is buying and demolishing 15 houses near a ditch in Franklin Township that floods after heavy rains. The county is spending $2 million in federal and local money to buy and tear down the houses and grade and seed land in the unincorporated area south of Downtown. But not every homeowner is accepting a buyout.

ALEXANDRIA, Ohio — Meredith Martin likes to use the word renaissance. Martin said she moved her newly opened Sunbear Studio & Gallery to Alexandria from Delaware County because of the Licking County village’s small-town charm and great location near affluent communities. Having an art gallery on Main Street has residents buzzing with the hope that the village of about 500 people is on the cusp of an economic resurgence.

WASHINGTON — The United States appeared to open the door yesterday to eventually arming the Syrian opposition, saying that if a political solution to the crisis becomes impossible, it might have to consider other options.

ANNAPOLIS, MD. -- A Maryland Senate committee approved a gay-marriage bill yesterday, sending it to the full Senate and moving Maryland closer to becoming the eighth U.S. state to legalize same-sex nuptials.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear a politically charged challenge to affirmative action at the University of Texas. The court’s decision gives conservatives another chance to reconsider the use of race in college admissions, and it further drives the court into the middle of the presidential campaign.

The intraparty feud splitting Ohio Republicans between those loyal to party Chairman Kevin DeWine and those backing Gov. John Kasich might have another prominent player: Secretary of State Jon Husted.

A donations box sits just inside the door, next to a sign on the wall inviting people to the “Rock for the Revolution” concert in Columbus the night before the primary. Of the dozens of people in the office, not one is getting paid, and the volunteers move around at a casual pace, rather than like energy-drink-infused balls of stress. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas isn’t your average presidential candidate, and this is no average state political-campaign operation.

Washington’s inability to figure out a way to pay for the nation’s roadwork probably will result in a three- or four-year temporary fix, U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers said yesterday. The Upper Arlington Republican told a transportation conference sponsored by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission that he backs a GOP plan to increase spending on highway repairs and improvements by leasing the rights for oil drilling in five additional areas off the nation’s coasts.

Pit bulls no longer will be automatically classified as vicious dogs under a bill signed into law yesterday by Gov. John Kasich.

Ohio’s elections chief has sided with fellow Republicans in breaking a tie vote over counting ballots in a disputed 2010 juvenile court election.

The state watchdog flagged “significant deficiencies” yesterday in how the Ohio Department of Transportation collects asphalt samples to ensure road crews are repaving highways effectively.

Washington’s inability to figure out a way to pay for the nation’s roadwork probably will result in a three- or four-year temporary fix, U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers said today.

Ohio’s public colleges and universities might not have been overly enthusiastic two months ago when Gov. John Kasich told them to work together and prioritize state spending for campus construction and repairs. Rather than compete, they would need to collaborate on a single wish list.

In April, the prize-winning New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid was asked, on the NPR talk show On Point, why he kept taking terrible risks to cover conflicts in the Middle East.

Black History Month honors the achievements of African-Americans throughout history, and that is a good thing.

IS THE IS THE Federal Housing Administration the solution to the current housing meltdown or the cause of the next one? Formerly an obscure agency with a limited mission — insuring mortgages with low down payments for creditworthy but low-income buyers — the FHA has filled the gap in mortgage liquidity left by the collapse of private-sector housing finance since 2008.

'If we could just take a little bit from each of them.' I’ve lost track of how many people I have heard say some version of this in the past couple of months.